Both the York Daily Record and the Harrisburg Patriot-News have articles up on the growing friction between the Discovery Institute and the Thomas More Law Center. Richard Thompson of the TMLC accuses the Discovery Institute of undermining their case and says that the Dover school board is a “victim” of their compromises. I’m with Ken Miller; I’m enjoying this.

Comments

“DI’s consistent message to the Dover board from the start was to adopt our teach the controversy approach — teach scientific criticisms of Darwin’s theory, but don’t mandate that students learn about (intelligent) design..”

I can’t think of an analogy that represents just how stupid these people must think other people are. If one took this statement at face value, one could easily show that most teaching of evolution includes scientific criticisms of various aspects of the theory and subsequent revisions, investigations, and so forth. That of course is part and parcel of science. Therefore what would be the benefit for DI and the intelligent design community to not discuss ID? There must be a component of teaching “their” critical scientific method that includes their labels and concepts of intelligent design.

Recall the contemptuous language about Dover, PA used by the Discovery Institute themselves:

This is an implicit admission that the teaching of evolution doesn’t make the news when states such as Ohio, New Mexico, and Minnesota adopt standards that teach all about the theory, including the scientific challenges to it, but only makes the news when the local amateur hour decides to downplay evolution or promote religion in science class.

Ed: Frankly I don’t think the TMLC needs any help in undermining its case.

Spyder: it’s even more disingenuous than that. The whole point of ID is that it consists solely of “scientific [sic] criticisms of evolution”. The only positive claim it makes is “That thing could not have evolved, therefore God (sorry, Designer)”. ID is so nebulous that teaching what the DI considers scientific criticisms of evolution is by definition teaching ID.